Enjoy this show currently on view at Scarstedt Gallery, New York. Titled “Hotel Stories” it features a new series of large scale works by American artist Eric Fischl. Hotel rooms take on an array of meanings, associations, and possibilities for each of their inhabitants. For some, they feel personal and cozy, like a safe haven.

For others, they’re simply a space to put their things. They can be sites of nefarious, taboo activity; a blank slate on which to place romantic ideals; or even spaces of extreme isolation and sadness. A wide range of events take place in these rooms that are not what the they supposedly promise, and Fischl explores each one of these potential outcomes in this new body of work, a perfectly fresh continuation of the ideas that have haunted his paintings for so many years.

The experience of travel is latent with a, perhaps false, sense of promise and possibility, making it a prime activity on which to project one’s innermost fantasies—one can be someone else when in a different city. Similarly, there is a certain familiarity in the experience of a hotel room: one can more or less expect the same outdated patterned carpet, drab wall art, a couple of chairs, and a bed.

At the same time, one remains keenly aware throughout their stay that they are transient, and that this space does not belong to them. Within this dichotomy of the familiar and unfamiliar lies further, tenser juxtapositions between interiority and exteriority, public and private, dislocation and comfort.

Using photographs and collage as starting point, Fischl constructs compositions which oscillate between collective dramas and individual renderings of human nature, pinpointing moments imbued with unresolved conflict and existential angst.

Generating diverse narrative associations by juxtaposing various layers of signification, the works of Eric Fischl fascinate by disecting situations which retain a degree of uncertainty and evade direct social or political interpretation. As the artist explains: “I paint from a position of not knowing. I’m guided by association and intuition, and I am in search of an experience filled with meaning.” Capturing deeply personal reflections on American society today, the works are thus quasi-autobiographical.

HOTEL ROOMS
ERIC FISCHL
SKARSTEDT GALLERY
NEW YORK
Skarstedt Gallery website

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